


The Trials and Tribulations of Eliot Spencer - Father

by Telaryn



Category: Leverage
Genre: Caper Fic, Con Artists, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Mistaken Identity, Nuns, Relationship(s), Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:58:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5617570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fatherhood was the last thing on Eliot's mind when eighteen year old Hayley Matthews brought him proof of their biological relationship.  He's risen to the occasion admirably - working continuously to balance giving his daughter a stable home life and letting her be herself.</p><p>There are problems though - like the fact that Hayley wants to follow him into the family business.</p><p>And she doesn't want to be a hitter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trials and Tribulations of Eliot Spencer - Father

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alyricaldreamer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyricaldreamer/gifts).



> This is what happened when I tried to blend your "Quinn helps the Leverage team" prompt with the one involving the Leverage team and kids.
> 
> Maybe if I didn't already have a headcanon for every contingency?
> 
> Anyway, thank you for playing with us this round!

_”I can feel you glaring.”_

Grimacing, Eliot glanced at Hardison. The hacker was focused a little too intently on his bank of monitors, the hand covering his mouth a little too on the nose. “I am _not_ glaring,” he protested, silently daring Hardison to argue with him. On the central monitor, the daughter Eliot had only known about for a handful of months was moving through a press of twenty-something trend-setters. They were in Tulsa, Oklahoma, tracking a necklace of blood diamonds that had last been seen in the possession of an up and coming country music singer.

_”You know, you’re the reason Nate said we could run with just Faith supervising us.”_

“Well Faith ain’t here, darlin’, and if we could trust Parker not to stab anyone you’d be home in Portland right now.” _She’s nervous,_ he realized. There had been tension between them almost since the beginning over Hayley’s desire to be a grifter, instead of taking after her father. _Or a normal teenager,_ Eliot added in the privacy of his own mind. _Nothing wrong with being a normal teenager at seventeen._

But the tension had been there, nonetheless. And now Hayley was having to ply her talents under his watchful eye – Eliot supposed he could see where that would put anyone on edge. "Stay focused,” he said as gently as he could manage. “This guy’s going to be easy meat. He’ll never see you coming.”

Hardison did turn to stare at him then. “Dude. Don’t be gross.”

“It’s not like she’s actually going to sleep with him,” Eliot countered, scowling at his teammate.

 _”Oh wow,”_ came Hayley’s voice again. _”Can we not? Please?”_

“Stay focused,” Eliot repeated. “Sophie says you’re a natural – just do the job.” She looked the part – that much Eliot was forced to admit. The stylish up-do and cutting edge club-wear added at least five years to her age, and he knew as her father he was being conservative in his estimation. She moved with far more confidence on screen than she was used to seeing her use in her everyday life.

Hardison did something and two of the indicators Eliot knew tracked function of the comms changed color. “Look man,” the hacker said, turning in his chair to face Eliot more fully, “I get it. You want to protect her from all the nasties out there that look at her and just see a tasty bit o’something. But your girl’s smart. And Sophie’s right – she’s a natural for this sort of work. Isn’t it better if she uses her instincts for good instead of just latching onto the first sugar daddy she finds?”

Eliot snorted softly. “You mean isn’t it better if she learns how to be Sophie now instead of Sophie then?” He shrugged. “I don’t know, man. I mean, I thought about having kids once upon a time. Every time I did though, I imagined them being normal. I don’t think that’s a bad thing either.”

“Not a bad thing no,” Hardison acknowledged with a grin. “Unfortunately it was also not likely.” Something on the monitor caught his eye; he straightened up, putting his hands back to the keyboard. “Looks like she’s made contact.”

Hayley’s voice came live in Eliot’s ear again. _“Oh please – I’d do anything for a chance to meet him…”_  
********************************************  
_Three point five million. Half already socked away, the other half on delivery._ The terms of his contract had become a mantra, repeated over and over in Quinn’s mind as he struggled to keep from just taking his mark – up and coming country music star West Allen – to the household safe at gunpoint and forcing him to turn over whatever was inside.

There was no way to prove the item he’d been tasked with obtaining was in the safe, of course – that was the first of the laundry list of problems Quinn had encountered on this job. An eighteen inch strand of flawlessly matched blood diamonds, each separated by a quarter carat ruby bead. By all reports the piece was gaudy, over the-top tacky, and thanks to its origin offensive on more levels than Quinn cared to contemplate. It had last been seen gracing the neck of the third-tier runway model Allen had chosen as his arm-candy for the CMA awards, and if what Quinn had heard around the studio was any indication Allen’s manager was still trying to deal with fallout from the bad publicity.

The fact that he’d been stuck in his bodyguard role long enough to know all of this was like an itch Quinn couldn’t scratch. He’d actually felt himself losing IQ points earlier in the evening at the club, as he helped screen the bevy of drunken women determined to insinuate themselves close to his mark.

“Mr. Quinn?”

Turning, Quinn saw the young woman who had eventually won the right to come home with them. _Hayley Richards,_ his brain helpfully supplied as he drew himself up into a more professional looking stance. “Yes miss?” he asked as she moved closer – her bare feet making only a whisper of sound against the polished hard wood floor.

Hayley smiled up at him – a sweet, if slightly loopy, grin that nevertheless raised the hair on the back of Quinn’s neck. There was something about the girl that bothered him deeply, but Allen had been almost hypnotized when they were introduced. “West said there was more beer, but I can’t find it?”

 _I wonder if anyone thought to double-check your ID,_ he thought. Barefoot, chestnut hair loose around her shoulders now, most of her makeup from earlier kissed off – she looked _much_ younger than she had before. _Dangerously so._ It was part of what was bothering him about her…but only part. Quinn could feel himself responding to her, in spite of all the arguments he could muster against it.

“The kitchen’s at the other end of the hall,” he said finally, keeping his voice and expression as bland as possible. If she was some kind of con artist, she would be on the lookout for tells he didn’t even know he had.

“It must be exciting being a bodyguard,” Hayley said, moving closer to him. Quinn took a quick step back, bringing both hands up to keep her from eliminating any more of the distance that separated them. “That’s a really big gun you’ve got there.”

Quinn would have laughed out loud at the line, except he heard a soft whisper of sound underneath Hayley’s girlish prattle just then – a sound that definitely didn’t belong. _The safe. Shit._ All thoughts of Hayley and whatever potential threat she represented forgotten, Quinn turned his back on her and hurried to the study.

“Stop!” Lights in the study were low, the way West Allen liked them, but there was more than enough illumination for him to see the wall safe standing open, and a slender, black clad leg disappearing into an open ceiling supply grille. _Parker?_ he thought – unsure of his identification, but chilled by the similarity.

“What’s going on?”

Without consciously choosing to act, Quinn spun back on Hayley – grabbing the girl by the wrists and carrying her into the nearest wall. “What did they take?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! Was somebody in here?” Her dark eyes were brimming with the threat of tears, but there was a heat in her gaze underlying the fear she was projecting at him. She was scared – he wasn’t supposed to have heard the thief – but every instinct Quinn had told him she’d enjoyed it when he grabbed her.

She’d enjoyed it a lot.

“Talk to me,” he said, modulating his voice a few ticks. “Tell me who hired you.” There was a possibility the necklace hadn’t been what was taken, but Quinn knew his luck wasn’t that good. If he had a name at least, he would know where to pick up the trail.

She bit her lower lip, letting a few tears slide strategically down her cheeks. “You’re hurting me. I haven’t done…”

Laughing bitterly, he gave her a little shake. “I’ve worked with the best grifter in the world, girl. Give it up - you're not getting inside my head." The two of them faced off for a long moment, then, before Quinn could stop her Hayley slipped his hold, surged forward and kissed him. 

Stunned, Quinn stumbled back a step – reaching up to grab her by the upper arms. Before he could force her back though, he felt a heavy hand grip his shoulder. Hayley pulled free of him just in time for the man who’d come up behind him to spin him around.

_Eliot…_

“Hands off my kid, Quinn.”  
********************************  
“You didn’t have to hit him.”

Eliot rounded on his daughter, mouth already open to start yelling, when his common sense got the better of him. “He’s just lucky Hardison couldn’t get a feed inside the house.” Hayley raised an eyebrow at that, and Eliot felt his face grow hot.

“You didn’t want to watch that,” Hardison said as he rounded on the hacker. “Trust me. You’d have killed the guy.”

“I’m still not sure he didn’t,” Parker mused. She was crouched over Quinn’s prone form, occasionally poking him in the face. “You know he’s probably getting paid for that necklace.” She looked up at the rest of them. “For a big enough cut…”

“Unless man’s been hired by the same group of nuns we were,” Hardison countered, “I don’t want to hear it. You don’t cross nuns. Not now, not ever.”

Leaving hacker and thief to their banter, Eliot went and sat by his daughter. “You did good,” he said after a long moment of silence. “I’m sorry I’m not handling this better. It’s just…weird.”

Hayley snorted. “You don’t think it’s weird for me? You’re growling about me kissing your friend, but that’s only because you won’t think about what I had to do to get close enough to that singer to drug him.”

Eliot shuddered reflexively, knowing she was right. “I took my comm out for that part, if it makes you feel better,” he said, not trusting himself to look at her. “I know I should have stuck it out, had your back, but it seemed…wrong, you know?”

The weight of his child suddenly leaning against his shoulder brought tears to Eliot’s eyes. “Thank you,” she said, wrapping both her arms around his. “That does make me feel a lot better.”

Feeling some of his balance restored, Eliot shifted the two of them so that he could put his arm around Hayley and hug her in close to his side. “Hey,” he said, just as Parker went to poke Quinn in the cheek again and the other hitter reached up to intercept her finger. “Welcome back, perv.”

Pale eyes met his gaze, and Eliot understood that he was going to be buying a lot of beer and doing a lot of cooking to regain a full measure of Quinn’s good will after this. “For what it’s worth?” the other hitter snarked, “Over protective father? Not a good look on you.”

“It’s his timing,” Hayley said, before Eliot could respond. “I keep telling him that he needs to wait a beat after delivering the threat – give it a chance to sink in. Good to meet you, by the way.”

Quinn smacked Parker’s hand away from his face one final time, before rolling smoothly to a sitting position. “I’ll reserve judgment on that until my ears stop ringing, thanks,” he said. “And don’t tell me – Sophie’s teaching you how to grift?”

Eliot couldn’t stop the obnoxious grin that suddenly lit his expression. “Says she’s a natural.”

“Perfect.” Quinn rolled his eyes. “Considering I’m betting I’m out the rest of my retrieval fee, there better be a really good dinner to go along with the rest of this story.”

“We keep asking you to come on full time,” Parker said, getting to her feet and dusting her hands against her thighs. “Not our problem you keep saying no.”

Eliot got to his feet as well; releasing Hayley, he went and held a hand out to Quinn. “Come on. I can’t cook for you tonight, but I promise it’ll be worth your while.”


End file.
